COMMON WHITE GRUBS. 19 
where whole communities or neighborhoods cooperate in the work is 
it effective. 
In collecting from food plants large cloth sheets are placed under 
the tree and the latter jarred, or in the case of large trees individual 
branches may be shaken by using a long pole provided with a hook 
at the end. The beetles are then gathered up from the sheet and 
placed in cans, bottles, or boxes and afterwards killed with carbon 
bisulphid. Jxilled in this manner they may be fed to chickens, pigs, 
etc., but if they are not. to be used for such purposes they may be 
killed by dropping them in cans containing water and just enough 
kerosene oil to cover the surface. Different species have different 
food preferences, but as a rule beetles are most abundant on the oak, 
walnut, poplar, hackberry, willow, ash, and elm. Collections may be 
made at any time during the night, but the best time for this work 
is in the early morning, before 4.30 o’clock, at a time when the 
beetles are easily jarred from the foliage. It is essential that col- 
lecting be begun as soon as the beetles appear in the spring—that is, 
before the beetles have begun to lay their eggs—and it should also 
be borne in mind that each female beetle destroyed early in the 
season means the destruction of from 50 to 100 grubs which she 
might have produced. 
Light traps have not as vet proven satisfactory as a means of 
control against May beetles, the prime objection to this method 
being that the light attracts the males to the almost total exclusion 
of the females. Further tests with this method must be made, and 
it is possible that the ight may prove attractive to the female beetles 
in years of unusual abundance if placed close to the trees or shrubs 
upon which they feed. 
SPRAYING. 
Spraying trees upon which the beetles feed, with Paris green or 
arsenate of lead, is effective against the beetles, but ordinarily 
this method is impracticable owing to the large size of the trees, 
whichgwould necessitate large and expensive power sprayers. With 
a more definite knowledge of the preferred food plants, it may be 
found practicable in some localities to plant low-growing trees and 
shrubs about fields as traps for the beetles, which might then be 
destroyed by spraying. 
SPECIAL DIRECTIONS. 
In those regions in which the grubs were so abundant and destrue- 
tive in 1912 certain special directions and precautions may prevent 
a repetition of the damage in 1915. As has already been stated, the 
parents of the grubs of 1912 appeared in the spring of 1911 and laid 
the eggs which hatched into the grubs. Practically no damage 
occurred that year, but in 1912, when about half grown, the grubs 
caused great loss. These grubs will continue active in the spring 
of 1913 and may injure certain early plantings, but by early June 
most of the grubs will have become more or less inactive and later 
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